Not At All What One Is Used To by Marian Janssen

  BookSpin has recently hired 3 book reviewers to help us churn out reviews faster and more often.
I will be introducing them this week.

First up, is Doni Molony, whose twitter is @thebattleofme .  Doni has already provided her first review:

Not at All What One Is Used To: The Life and Times of Isabella Gardner
by Marian Janssen
Univ. of Missouri Press
2010, 392 pages, 20 illustrations

This is the well-researched, very readable story of the other Isabella Stewart Gardner.  Not the gilded-age patroness of the arts, whose mansion in Boston's Fenway became the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; but the story of her great-niece and namesake, a mid-20th century poet and rebellious wild-child.

Born in 1915, Isabella grew up in splendid surroundings, attended exclusive schools, and was raised in the posh Brookline neighborhood of Boston. Gardner made her debut into Boston Society, but her life was inexorably changed at age 18, when she was involved in a drunk-driving accident. Her family quickly moved to cover up the incident, and shipped her off to Europe.

The years in Europe helped Isabella crystalize her interests: in the theatre, in literature, and in men. She was married and divorced four times, with heart-wrenching results. "Belle" was brilliant, troubled, prodigious, refined, and generous-to-a-fault. She usually followed her heart, which led her to multiple relationships; some good, some bad, but none everlasting.

Seemingly at the right place at the right time, Isabella associated with many of the literary lions of her day, including Robert Penn Warren, Tennessee Williams, T.S. Eliot, and her cousin, Robert Lowell. She co-edited Poetry magazine in the 190's, and was an unsparing contributor of her time regarding the reading and writing of poems.

As troubled as Belle was in love, she was both a durable and stalwart friend. She was gracious and generous, and gave freely of both her time and her resources. Gardner helped many struggling young artists, and never "lent" money, but gave plenty away; to the consternation of her family.

Gardner was married for the fourth and final time to poet and southern writer Allen Tate, who left his wife of 35 years to marry Belle. She moved to Minneapollis, and tried to live life as a "faculty wife," further alienating her children and her family. She was shattered when after a few short years, Tate left her to marry a nun.

Gardner's story is unsettling. She spent her final years living in the Chelsea Hotel in New York, writing poems, and drinking with thieves and hangers-on. Her children's lives spiraled out of control in tandem with her alcoholism, ultimately with grim results. Gardner was named Poet Laureate of New York, preceding her untimely death in 1981 at age 66.

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Doni Molony is a native of South Louisiana, an East Tennessee transplant, and a sucker for anything with an engine.  She holds a pilot license and a motorcycle endorsement. She has a husband of 3 decades, 2 grown children, and a serious reading addiction.